Mercy
by FloraOne
Summary: Two years after the events of "Nocturne For A Queen" Mamoru is still a pining, miserable mess for a girl that doesn't remember what they used to be to each other. Now, she's stuck alone in a storm, and he is losing all of his control. A sequel to "Nocturne For A Queen" written for Smutember 2019.


_Here's my second contribution for smutember, and this time with much, much more plot, lol. If you haven't seen or heard about the event yet – it's a month on tumblr to celebrate sex-positivity in fanworks. On my tumblr you find a customized trope set as well as some rules for our fandom corner. It's meant to bring a little more sex-positive and healthy sexual media into the world that isn't the mainstream male-gaze and in our case written for a mostly female audience by a mostly female authorbase. So, if you like any of the fics in the event, please consider leaving them a review to join in the celebration and help normalize female-gazed sexual media for all of us and give them some deserved love : ) _

_This fic is set in the universe of one of my other fics: It's set two years after the events of "Nocturne for a queen" – ya know, the universe in which I had Mamoru torture himself over the fact that he could remember Classic and she doesn't while he pines for her af and babysits her at college party and then kinda fails to bring her home in the timely manner that he said he would. _

_So, this fic combines three tropes: First, the one I listed this under, a very canon-unique version of "Sex with the ex" (seeing as, ya know, Usagi technically doesn't remember being the ex since only Mamoru is haunted with their Silver Millennium memories, AND the relationship was in a different life), and then also a dash of First Times and a pinch of Just Tonight (ya know, the trope that is never meant to really be just tonight.)_

_Thanks FOREVER to my beta Uglygreenjacket who is always taking all those precious hours out of her BUSY FUCKING LIFE to do this for me and I couldn't be more grateful! Love you, girl!_

_Anyway, beware the angstbus, fair warning lol, and I hope you enjoy!_

* * *

Mercy

A Fic In The "Nocturne For A Queen" Universe Written For Smutember 2019

* * *

_"__I'm in love with you," Endymion whispered too close to her lips. Serenity was all wide, terrified, devastatingly beautiful eyes and softest hair, her fingertips brushing carefully across his chest, his heart. _

_"__And I think you're in love with me, too."_

_He trembled under her touch, so close to bursting, to losing control. They couldn't. He knew it. Everything would fall by their hands. And yet… _

_His lips moved to her ear, her hands pulled at his tunic, curling, and she whispered the lie that would break them both against the sensitive skin of his throat. _

_"__It doesn't have to mean anything. Just this one memory and we could stop."_

_Oh, but it would mean everything. He would never be able to go back to before._

_When she pulled him to her and climbed on top of him, and his hands clawed into the fine, thin fabric of her almost translucent white dress and pulled, he knew what would happen, he knew it in his heart. But he would take every consequence if she would just never stop touching him._

* * *

Through all the times he nearly slipped, lost control, told her everything, or simply fell into her arms and her lips, he thought if it ever did happen, it would be something immeasurably intense.

The apocalypse. Being kidnapped and brainwashed.

But they'd done all that many times over and he'd been able to hold onto his vow.

She'd decided to forget him, wished it on the legendary crystal that breathed through her very veins. It was her choice and he needed to respect that. He'd stay away.

Then Reika's party came and he'd slipped so hard he was afraid he'd blown it all, and yet nothing had happened.

Two years more and his heart cried knowing nothing ever would.

Several apocalypses. Times where he'd held her broken, dying, sacrificed body. Watching her all these years, this beautiful person that made a room light up by the sheer power of her compassion, so charming and irresistible and so close. Her drunk eyes and hands asking him to kiss her surrounded by the cherry blossoms in the night. Nothing had made him cave and disrespect her wish.

In the end, all it took was a thunderstorm, her tear-streaked, barefaced, melancholy eyes, whispered words from lips that rang in his ears because he'd heard them before, and her hand reaching out for him.

He really thought he would have been stronger than that. But after six years of longing for this goddess that was everything he'd ever want and everything he could never have, there was just no strength left in him to deny.

* * *

Usako, 1:36am  
Hey, are you awake by any chance?

Usako, 1:39am  
If you are awake do you maybe think you might be able to come pick me up? I'm sorry for asking you. I know it's so late and totally not your problem and you probably have classes in the morning. I was at this work thing and missed the last train and I'm kinda stranded and neither Haruka nor my Papa are picking up their phones and Mako-chan is out of town and none of the other girls have a car. I know it'd be a giant favor to ask.

Usako, 1:57am  
Nevermind. Please, please ignore this when you wake up? I'll manage. Sorry to bother you!

* * *

Mamoru jolted awake from his haunting dreams to the loud, booming crackle of thunder, almost simultaneous to a flash of light that illuminated his whole room, and he blinked the shock away with a startled and wildly beating heart.

Outside of his window, the rain was beating a ferocious rhythm against the panes.

It was the kind of weather he sometimes found soothing when he could watch it from the inside in the dark, and sometimes it locked him into his darkest thoughts.

Inhaling deeply, he blinked his eyes back closed, exhaled just as deeply, and tried to go back to sleep.

But it just wouldn't come.

He lay like this for a while, trying not to think of anything, trying to ignore his parched mouth and the way his thoughts threatened to run off, and when they started to latch onto where he didn't want them to go, he jolted up and fled his bed.

His faucet squeaked and even against the raging storm outside the tab sounded impossibly loud, but the relief was instant when he gulped down the cold water. He drank it all in one go and set the glass onto his countertop with a loud thud, then glanced at his phone and the time, flashing at him where it loaded beside the outlet on the counter.

2:24 am. Not so bad. He would be able to fall asleep at some point and still have a full night's sleep.

Only then did he notice the little icon underneath the time that indicated a new text.

His stomach plummeted, phone in hand, when he read the messages and the time stamps, his eyes flying back to his windows and the furious, unrelenting storm.

Usagi was scared of thunderstorms.

* * *

Mamoru, 2:25 am  
Where are you? I'll be right there.

Mamoru, 2:28 am  
I'm in my car, where are you?

Mamoru, 2:30 am  
Usagi

Mamoru, 2:32 am  
You said work, right? Are you in Mitaka?

Mamoru, 2:34 am  
Usagi. Tell me where to find you.

Mamoru, 2:36am  
I'm driving to Mitaka. Please call me back.

* * *

The windshield wipers in his car were on full blast and arched a little under the weight of the rain that pounded down on them, swishing noisily across his windshield and yet managing to do quite too little to clear his view.

The streets were deserted. Just a few taxis here and there. Other than that, no one seemed so stupid as to drive in this weather in these conditions.

He clutched the steering wheel a little harder and glared at his phone, mounted on his dashboard, and punched the green call button once more.

Straight to voicemail.

He pressed end call just as Usagi's achingly sweet voice was starting to tell him she couldn't answer the phone right now and to please leave her a message.

He'd already left around four of them, and they'd been starting to get irritated and passive aggressive and barely more than a hiss and he really did not want her to listen to them once he'd calmed down enough to actually care and so it was better to stop.

Maybe she'd gotten a taxi in the half hour it had taken him to notice her messages (he blamed the fucking rain, he usually heard his phone _always_) and she was already fast asleep at home while he drove around in a thunderstorm blindly searching for her.

Or maybe she'd transformed, and her phone was somewhere in a different plane of existence or wherever else their belongings went when they transformed, and Sailor Moon was out here in the night, hopping across rooftops through the storm.

He pushed down hard on the brake pedal when a traffic light came out of _nowhere_ and cursed under his breath, slipping too far across the stop line on the wet road before he came to a halt. Huffing, he drummed his fingers impatiently against the steering wheel and signaled a left turn.

Or maybe she was somewhere scared and alone in the rain without reception.

As if on cue to the horrid thought, lightning flashed across the sky in an almost artisan way, followed immediately by a deafening rumble of thunder.

The storm was _right here._

He almost groaned in relief when the stupid light finally turned green, shifted gears blindly, automatically, and pressed his foot down to accelerate before having to force himself almost physically to go slower in this weather. Aquaplaning off the road wouldn't help Usagi any.

Another flash illuminated the sky and his car, and the rain on the roof beat a ferocious rhythm that was loud and mocking and in sync with his frantic heart.

She was Sailor Moon for fuck's sake. When would he never learn not to worry so fucking much?

But he did. And it coiled like acid in his gut.

Trying to calm his heart he tried to feel her. Contemplated again to park the car on the side of the road, transform, and find her like that. He would be slower without his car, but the connection to her was slightly stronger when he was Tuxedo Mask. But it wasn't perfect when there was no attack, and it wouldn't be able to drive her home in the dry.

Still, he reached out in his mind. And he did find the hum – the comforting feeling that just indicated she was here, somewhere in this city, and alive, but nothing beyond that.

It had grown weaker over the years, going crazy whenever she was in danger, but brittle under misuse.

He clutched the steering wheel harder, checked over his shoulder, and moved the car into the next lane over.

His phone flashed 3:09 am at him, and it made his skin crawl.

Or maybe she'd gotten embarrassed that she'd asked him for help in the first place and turned off her phone, thinking he'd be mad at her. Thinking he'd see and choose not to come, that he might think she was a bother. As if she could ever be.

The thought made his skin flare even more, especially because he ended up assessing it the most likely scenario, and he hated himself a little more.

She'd tried him _last_. She'd tried everyone she knew with a car first before she thought of him. Hadn't even called, just sent a tentative text at first.

He didn't want to be the last person she'd call for help. And yet he was, even when he wanted so badly to be the first.

Even in the pounding rain it took Mamoru only a record 19 minutes to cover the 25km from his door to her workplace. But she hadn't been there, the building deserted, and since then, he'd been driving around blindly in search for her.

Maybe Haruka or her father had woken up from the storm, too, and seen her calls at last. Maybe she was safe in their cars, on her way to her and Minako's shared apartment, long ago now.

It was when he neared Mitaka's closed down main train station that he finally felt her, and it filled him both with such deep relief and biting dread. And only after he'd circled the dark building three times that he finally found her.

No one had found her. No one had come. She'd been all alone.

His heart felt like it was slammed back into his chest and ripped out all at once when he slowed to a stop and saw her through his passenger window.

He almost would have missed her.

She was curled into a tiny ball of sad; arms clamped around her knees, rocking a little, seated on the stone steps underneath the tiny roof that held the closed down JR gates, and he flew from his car.

His restraint was bullet-proof, usually. The only times he slipped were during battle; when she'd taken a hit or when she was targeted as the victim – then his instinct would take the front seat and he'd turn into a snarling, _touching_ beast that held her too close.

But when lightning flashed and thunder rolled and she hadn't seen him yet and _squeaked_ so pitifully, making herself even smaller, his restraint was gone.

He didn't even slow down, just locked his thighs around this small, frightened ball of Usagi, enveloping her whole, wound his arms around her shoulders and drew her close.

She jumped, her fringe matted to her face and her eyes startled and puffy and wet like all of her was, and even when he couldn't tell if it was rain or tears on her face, in the brief second their eyes met before he'd crashed her against his chest, he could see the spontaneous, surprised sob that erupted from her throat when her eyes turned from shock to recognition and she crumbled into him arms, sobs wrecking her as he held her.

He pressed his lips into the crook of her neck and rocked her through her relieved sobbing, running his hand through her hair in what he hoped was a soothing , comforting rhythm, and there was not a power in the world that would have been able to make him withdraw.

"I'm sorry it took me so long," he whispered against her wet skin, and she sobbed harder.

* * *

He withdrew when she'd managed to calm her crying to a level that she could take a deep, calming breath.

The moment her exhaling breath rustled his hair he jumped from her as if she had electrocuted him, and it took all of her willpower to not dissolve into a fresh round of ugly, loud sobs.

Instead she dug her hands into her wet, uncomfortably clinging dress pants and followed him up, swallowing the pain in her throat that threatened to escape under a fresh wave of embarrassment.

She was so wet she might as well have taken a shower fully clothed. Everything on her was dripping. She was soaked to the bone so much her pants created that uncomfortable friction with her just as wet underwear. She must have looked downright pitiful.

Her used-to-be-cute-looking business chic outfit hung drenched from her form. Her white blouse was completely see-through in this state, and she wrapped her thick, woolen cardigan around her form, clutching her wet bag to her chest to hide her bra even when it was dripping, her cardigan was a wet rag at this point. Her coral suede pumps looked almost black in their state of puddle and her wet feet slipped against the rubber sole inside, making it hard to walk. Tendrils of fuzz curled away from her pigtails that were matted back down against her face when she stepped back into the drenching rain and followed him to his car.

She clutched her bag harder against her front, bowing around it a little, hiding. The rain beat down on the back of her neck and down her spine, when he wordlessly held open his passenger door for her, looking pointedly at the ground and not at her, almost stubbornly.

He was pretty drenched himself by this point, the rain dripping off his hair and down his face.

She hesitated. Stood rooted in front of his open, flashy, shiny car, the rain splattering onto the posh leather seat.

"I'm gonna get your car all wet," she croaked. Her voice broke halfway, and she realised she hadn't even greeted him, just used her voice for ugly crying and it showed. It was hoarse and sounded not like it should belong to her because she wasn't treating it very well.

He finally lifted his eyes and threw her a look like bloody murder, and simply opened his door a little wider for her, rain pummeling down onto it and him and dripping from his fringe and he looked intense and angry and agitated.

Her heart pounded painfully in her chest and she got in, clutching her bag, and he pushed the door shut on her, and she jumped.

She'd been regretting texting him even before her battery finally ran out. And god, yes, she was never so relieved to see him, but the regret started to seep back into her bones.

He walked around the car and opened up the door on his side of the car and wouldn't look her in the eyes when he got in and closed it behind him.

Then he glanced at the way she sat, hunched over, trying to touch as little of the seats as possible.

She suddenly felt so very stupid, embarrassment overriding everything that happened on this sucky day, all her insecurities she usually felt in his presence instead flashing to the surface and filling up her tingling, itchy, wet skin.

He frowned. "It's just water," he bit out.

"It's ok." She fought the urge to hug herself.

But then he found her eyes and they were so… so…

She carefully sat back, and he cleared his throat and started the car.

His eyes found her sides in a frown, and she buckled up with a shuddering sigh.

She knew he was quite possibly attracted to her. It was a very new revelation; she'd mistaken his actions for so long that she felt like an idiot when it had recently finally clicked. The man she was so desperately in love with, had been pining after so hopelessly ever since she was 14, when she'd been told she was a princess and a warrior and here these people are all here to protect you. The man that held her heart in his ever-frowning eyes, the man who had _always_ looked – not only twice but a dozen times over and yet scowled so hard whenever he had – was attracted to her, too, and yet he seemed to despise her anyway.

It seemed he fought every little thing between them like someone hanging onto a cliff by their very fingernails, as if she was the worst thing that could happen to him and like he hated himself for wanting it anyway.

Was it a just passing, unwanted urge? Something his body did to him, but he felt was irresponsible given that they were magical teammates, and decided thus to shove away?

Or was she just the most awful thing in the universe for him that he couldn't even stand the thought of wanting her? The thought fit her mood, anyway.

What the hell could she have done to him in their past life or that lost year that made him resent her very presence despite that intense pull between them? What the fuck had she done?

Waking him up in the middle of the night because she was too stupid to adult was probably not helping her cause.

She clutched her dripping bag a little harder. He turned away from her, looked over his _wrong_ shoulder and made a U-turn on the deserted road turned flowing river. She could hear the flashing water underneath the wheels as he turned, the drum of the rain on the roof of his precious car.

She forced herself to speak, and her voice might as well have squeaked like an unoiled machine.

"I'm really very sorry for waking you up and forcing you out into this weather," she whispered into the silence in the car, nearly drowned out by the deafening rain. "I promise you were the last resort, I wouldn't have…" she trailed off when his look turned darker.

He shook his head sharply. Then he looked as if he wanted to say something, and then just didn't, and it worried her.

She bit her lip. Her eyes found his dashboard. She frowned when her eyes settled on his phone and the open call list.

Before she had a chance to count or even really see, his hand had shot out and pressed his home button.

Had he— Was she saved in his phone under '_Usako'…_?

"Why didn't you get a taxi?" he asked at last, his voice a little on the rough side, too.

She was dripping into his car in noisy, embarrassing droplets and it made her hands tremble. Or maybe it was her nerves. Either way, she laced them together over her bag.

"I forgot my wallet at home." She sounded too meek and felt utterly inadequate. "I only had my Suica."

He stared straight ahead at the road. The windshield wipers were ferociously loud.

"You could have called Minako and asked her to pay the taxi once you got home." It sounded like a chide.

Usagi shook her head and flinched when it felt like a dog shaking its fur on someone's designer clothes. "Minako's on a job in Fukuoka," she murmured.

"Oh," he said. And after a beat of most uncomfortable silence, he added, "I really was the _very_ last resort, then."

Her heart was beating wildly, and her throat was closing up. He was being _awkward_, and she brought him into this position, and he was completely _irritated_ with her, she could _feel_ it—

She tried to interrupt her own oppressing thoughts.

"I was gonna transform but…"

He interrupted her with a sharp nod, but his brow smoothed over, didn't look as stern as before. "But the storm."

She nodded, biting her lip a bit too hard, too tense. She was still trying _so_ hard not to cry again.

He didn't chide her for her irrational, childish fear, at least, and it filled her with a stab of appreciation.

"What were you gonna do?" he asked. His voice still sounded pressed, but it was kinder now.

"I was waiting for the first train to run," she admitted. She hated how her voice just refused to work normally.

He frowned. "You would have waited for hours. In the storm."

She shrugged. Then a particularly loud clash of thunder rumbled outside, and she visibly jumped and silently cursed herself for it.

He didn't react. Instead, he flicked the little plastic switch behind the steering wheel and signaled a left turn. "You should have watched the time," he said, back to sounding gruff.

She pressed her lips together. "I didn't plan on being stranded."

He exhaled as if to calm himself, and when she looked at his hands on the steering wheel, she saw how white his knuckles were, how strong his grip.

Shit. He was _so, so_ angry with her. It stabbed her in the eyes, and she had to blink away the stinging, biting, threatening tears.

"What did you plan on, then?" he almost hissed.

Irritation flared up in her, hot and wild and rimming in her eyes and choking up her voice and shit, he _heard_. "I _planned_ to drive home with the colleague who said he wouldn't drink and give me a ride, since he lives close by."

She felt his eyes through the rearview mirror but didn't look. Instead, she turned to the window, because the angry tears threatened to spill, and she didn't want him to see, because this time, they were for him, and he'd seen enough tears for the night.

She shrugged awkwardly and continued, voice shaking and breaking and clocking up when the tears fell. "He drank anyway, and I hadn't noticed soon enough that he did, and when he got a little too friendly, I decided not to get into his car."

She heard his breath hitch.

"Oh," he said again, tone very, very different now.

"Yeah."

She heard him clear his throat.

"That… that was a good decision," he said it like something that was very hard to say.

She nodded at the passenger window angrily and wiped her nose. "Yeah."

She hit her head against the headrest and turned her face a little further to the window and started to cry, and somehow it all bubbled out, all the frustration, all the irrational, terrifying fear out in the rain, all the hope that Mamoru would come and get her and her fear of calling him. The despair and _shame_, sitting for hours in a storm when she was supposed to be an unfearing, powerful superheroine, when she was supposed to have her life under control by now. The sheer exhausting, powerful, overwhelming _relief_ when he _just appeared_. When he was there. When he held her. When he was there, this only man she'd ever wanted, the only person she wanted help from but was too afraid to ask, and she hadn't even told him where she was. He came anyway.

The crushing feeling under his stern eyes, his anger, now.

_He might want you. Sometimes. But he doesn't _want_ you._

She was the silly version of an ancient princess. The person he shouldn't have a fling with because he was bound to stick around because of magic, and it would be too awkward if he did.

Stupid moment to break apart over it. But she'd been breaking apart all night anyway.

Before she knew it, she hid back in her knees because the sobs came just too hard.

She barely heard his voice.

"Did—" He had to start again. His voice sounded dark and low and dangerous and terrified all at once. "Did he do something, you—"

She shook her head, barked a 'No!' but it came out as a gurgle between all the ugly sobbing and she wasn't sure he heard. She didn't want him to _see_. She must have been the most unfuckable sight in the universe right about now, and he was the _last_ person that she wanted to see her like that, and yet the tears came faster and faster and the sobs turned into this ugly, choking, noisy mess and she couldn't _stop_, and so she clenched her arms and elbows around her face to hide behind, instead. She didn't have a clue how much time passed like that, but then the car jerked and they stopped, but she couldn't stop, she couldn't.

The passenger door opened and the sound of the rain changed with the door open – and suddenly there were hands around her, undoing her seatbelt, the weight of her dripping wet handbag lifted from her lap and then his arms were around her and lifting her out of the car, and her sobs came harder still.

And this was how she found herself clutching his shoulders, her wet mess of a face pressed to his neck and his damp shirt, his arms around her knees and her back and she heard him rummage in her bag, her jiggling keys, and somehow he managed it all and carried her bridal style into her home.

A few jerky movements, too much of her snot and open-mouthed hysterics against his throat, two creaking doors, and she was lowered onto her trusty old moons-and-bunnies comforter.

And then his hands were at her feet and she had to press her hands to her mouth not to wail because Mamoru was so fucking unfair, how could he be so fucking perfect, how was this _fair_ – _Mamoru_ was _taking off her shoes._

But then his hands were gone, and she shot off the bed. "No!" she wailed, snot and all. "Don't leave!"

He crouched down slowly into her line of sight, all long, lean lines and concern all over his face. "I'm just putting your shoes away, Usako."

Oh.

She laid back down. A soft brush of his fingertips against her fringe, and she closed her eyes and tried _so_ hard, so _damn_ hard to make herself believe it was meant to be a caress not out of pity but out of affection.

* * *

He hovered in her doorway for a split second, clutching at her towels and trying to will his nerves away. Her room was dark – as dark as it could be with Tokyo's Neon lights shimmering faintly through her window and off her back, laying just as he'd deposited her on her bed, with the rain a barely audible, drumming backdrop.

He was so agitated he wanted to scream – or alternatively transform. He still wasn't all convinced he didn't have some hands to rip off of some drunk corporate guy somewhere in the general vicinity.

But god_damn_, her sobs wrecked through his soul. There wasn't a worse sound in the world. He didn't know what to do. Just that there was no way he could leave.

He swallowed hard and with shaking hands he stepped into the room, armed with a bunch of fluffy, colorful towels and a glass of water that he quietly settled on her nightstand under her quieted sniffles and her watchful eyes, and offered her a washcloth that he'd held under hot water.

She watched him with those too big, too beautiful, too watery eyes, sat up, tucking her legs underneath her, and took the washcloth and wiped it across her face.

He'd never been so unsure to sit, and so, in the most awkward of all awkward moves, he sat down on the farthest corner of her bed with just one buttcheek, hovering uncomfortably.

Her face crinkled into a deep, stern frown and he cleared his throat, rose, and sat down closer to her.

Then he shook out the biggest of all towels and flipped it around her form, did the same with the smaller towel and dumped it on her head.

She made a sound that was halfway between a snort and a sniffle, and her hands snaked out between the edges of the towel and rubbed at her head. Two, three ruffles and she moved it further back to peak out under it.

"Better?" he asked, and his voice sounded tentative and off.

She nodded slowly, eyes at her comforter, and then she shrugged out of her cardigan and let it fall in a wet, smacking puddle next to her bed.

His eyes _ripped_ away from her, averting his eyes almost _violently_, and he felt the flush creep up his neck.

"Better," she said oh so softly. "Thank you."

White blouse. Entirely wet, entirely _see-through_, white blouse.

Taupe. Her bra was taupe lace.

He squeezed his eyes shut, nodded, and got up. "Right."

"No!" she yelped, and he sat back down as if she'd pulled him. But his line of sight was stubbornly trained on her wall, and when he felt the mattress dip and he just _knew_ she was _taking off her pants next to him_, he closed his eyes and tried not to make a single noise.

One more wet smack landed on her floor.

He exhaled as slowly and silently as he could, and awkwardly folded his hands in his lap. His shoulders had never been so stiff, and the silence had never been so uncomfortable between them –

and he was the reigning _master_ of awkward silences around her.

"Thank you for tonight," she mumbled, and he nodded.

"Of course," he croaked.

And then he frowned. "And…" he started, kneaded his hands tighter. "Please don't worry about bothering me. I need you to know it's always ok if you… if you…" he trailed off.

_I would die for you. I would kill for you. Don't ever hesitate to wake me the fuck up._

He glared at the wall instead, cursing words.

When he chanced the barest glance, he found her wrapped in the bigger towel wrapped around the white blouse that she was still wearing, endless, gorgeous, naked legs stretched underneath her, and her hands in her hair, undoing her buns.

He looked back at the wall.

Mortified, blood relocating to place he really, really did not want it to travel to, he tried to control his breathing, tried to… tried to…

"Was this 'work thing' worth the trouble, at least?" he ground out, and wanted to smack himself for the idiotic question immediately.

Usagi shuffled closer, and even when he didn't move at all, trained his eyes studiously at the wall, out of the corner of his eye he could see creamy legs slide off the side of the bed and align themselves next to his.

"Not at all," she growled. "What kind of work party serves _no food_?"

He would have chuckled, would he not have been so distracted, and he almost jumped when something soft was thrust into his chest.

She was holding the smaller towel out towards him. The arm attached to it was shaking it softly, and when his sight reluctantly travel over back to her, she was sitting next to him with her hair tucked into the bigger towel that went over her shoulders now, snuggled in, but left her thighs completely bare.

Her underwear was taupe lace, too.

He held his breath, and she shook the towel again.

"You're wet, too," she said, head tilted.

He didn't dare to move, but he accepted the slightly damp towel and rubbed it awkwardly into his hair.

When he felt it was all it would do, he moved the towel down to settle across his neck and faced her again. He was sure his hair was facing every which way in complete disarray, and it showed on the soft smile on her face.

He had to avert his eyes again. That smile was worse than her thighs.

"I really should go," he told her wall, and felt her nod and sigh.

"You probably have classes in like, 4 hours," she said in an apologetic voice.

He nodded. "I do."

She nodded, too, rubbed her hands across her _naked_ thighs, her elbow ruffling his shirt ever so slightly, just barely, not really touching, and it ran like a shudder through him.

And then he didn't move.

And didn't say anything.

Just sat there, rooted. His hand on his knee and her hand on her knee, right next to each other, just barely _not_ touching, and really, he should go, and yet he didn't move, and his fingers kept twitching, kept trying to reach out.

He exhaled a tortured breath he didn't know he'd held when she broke the silence.

"Mamo-chan?" she whispered.

He jumped at the rare, coveted nickname like he always did, and squeaked out a broken "Mh-hmm?"

What she whispered into the silence had him plummet back into his gut.

"Tell me of our lost year?" she asked. So soft, so small, so hesitant.

_Please no._

He rubbed a hand across his face.

"There's…" he started, blinked. "There's nothing to tell, really."

"Please?" she breathed.

He had the urge to jump. To flee. To at least pace the length of her room. But his hand was on his knee and her hand was on her knee and they sat close, so close, and it glued him to her bed.

"I don't even know most of it from your point of view," he whispered, clenched his eyes shut. "I wasn't your ally for most of it. We were going… separate ways."

She nodded. "Because you really hate my guts," she offered.

He couldn't help it. He snorted. "Yeah, Odango, that's why."

She wrinkled up her nose. "Figured," she crinkled at him. With a start he noticed he'd turned, he was looking right at her and her damp, golden hair framing her face in damp, beautiful little curls, cheeks flushed and rosy and—

He froze.

Her look sobered, and then her hand reached out, and he froze even harder, because it was no longer on her knee, it was on his hand, on his knee.

"Please?" she repeated in a whisper, and his voice came out broken and rough when he answered.

"It was much like the second time around. A cat gave you a brooch, just that you started out alone."

"Alone with you," she said.

He nodded. "Alone with me," he told their hands.

"And then?"

He sighed. "We insulted each other in the streets, you met the girls," he said, slow and careful and trying to keep his voice from shaking to hard. "In the end you beat the bad guy all alone after we'd all been killed, and then you wished it all had never happened so you could just lead a normal life. And then we had to force you back anyway."

It did no good. His voice had been shaking anyway. Her hand twitched on his.

"And between us?" she asked.

He swallowed. "What do you mean?"

But he knew of course, he just stalled for time, as if he didn't know exactly what she meant. But what was he to say?

"What happened between us that year?"

_I was a dumb douche who didn't know what was right in front of his eyes until it was too late. I died for you, found out I'd died for you before, got resurrected, tried to kill you, died again. It was horrid and you wanted to forget it. _

"…Nothing really?" he croaked.

"What's the really?" she asked, her hand tightening on his.

"Nothing happened, Odango," he whispered stubbornly. "Nothing of importance."

And it was true. Right? Nothing had happened. He didn't get to be with her in this life. Lost year or otherwise.

Her voice was small but insistent, and so close to his ear. "Who were we to each other?"

"Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask, Odango Atama and Mamoru-baka," he breathed.

He felt her shoulders slump.

"So, just the same," she said.

He exhaled. "Yeah. Just the same." But his tone had dropped, sounded disastrously sad even to his own ears, but he really couldn't…

He swallowed, and then finally moved his hand.

He blamed the fact that it was somewhere around 4am and his heart was pounding and it had been six fucking years, that instead of withdrawing, he flipped his hand palm up and didn't move away when she laced her fingers through his. Her soft, soft, tiny hand in his.

His heart ran away from him. It looked too right.

And so did her eyes. Wide and blue and the most beautiful sight in the world, even when they blinked, a little too close.

He forced his mouth to move.

"What happened today, Usako?" he asked.

She shrugged, her hand stubbornly in his, her other had pushing her hair behind her ear. "The world was mean, and then there was a stupid storm."

A storm that was still raging outside of her window, drumming against the panes.

He looked her in the eyes and waited, and she shrugged again and looked at their hands.

"I realized today that I don't like my colleagues," she admitted softly. "Normally I like _everyone_, but these people… they just look towards profit, and outsmarting each other and shining in front of the bosses and pointing out each other's mistakes so they'll seem better in comparison. They'll be friendly on the outside but then…" she frowned, crinkled her nose.

"Today people from my team talked about the new intern, and she's a bit ditzy like me and they were so friendly to her when I saw them today, but then later… the things they SAID about her…"

She trailed off, bit her lip. "I think I don't want to work there anymore. But what else would I do?"

It sounded like a confession. Like it was hard for her to admit. Like it was a failure when clearly, they didn't deserve her.

"You can do lots of things," he said instead.

She rolled her eyes. "Professional shoe thrower, you mean."

He smirked. "You'd be the best."

It elicited a very charming, very Usagi, very un-ladylike snort. "Yeah right."

But then she sobered, eyes back on their hands, and he noticed with a start he'd been stroking hers with his thumb, but when he noticed, he couldn't seem to stop.

One slip wouldn't do too much damage, right? One slip when she was down and needed a friend.

"I do have an out," she said, tone off. "I've been considering it."

"What is it?"

Somehow, he knew before she'd even started to answer that what was coming was nothing he would want to hear.

"They want to relocate me," she said with a shrug, and his hand twitched on hers. "I was offered a transfer to a branch that works a little less competitively and a little more creative. I'd be working less for the animation studio and more for the merch and events."

His heart started to pound.

"Where is it?" he asked breathlessly.

"Nagoya."

His heart stopped. _Too far too far too far_. He wouldn't feel her. Not at all. The hum would be gone. He'd be going crazy every second.

"Nagoya?" he choked.

She nodded. "I said I'd think about it. Fully intending to say no. What is Sailor Moon doing in Nagoya?" She said, lifting unsure eyes to his shocked ones, lifted her shoulders, and let them fall dramatically. "But… we haven't had a serious enemy in years, not since Galaxia, and the girls don't really need me. Minako is already all over the place for her modeling jobs, and Haruka, Michiru and Setsuna bought that house in the mountains. And if something happened, I could be right back."

He wanted to say something, wanted to comment, but his voice didn't—

"And I mean, it's not like people actually need Usagi here outside of Sailor Moon. The girls are so busy, I feel like…"

"You feel like…" he managed to repeat dumbly.

She exhaled through her nose, frowned hard. Her voice was small. Too small. Too—

"I'm the annoying nuisance," she rasped. "The old obligation they feel they need to protect while they are busy with their new lives."

He shook his head, pulled at her hand. "Usako…"

"I haven't seen Ami in like, 3 months. Only heard her on the phone."

"She's going up to her first set of state exams," he blurted. "Medical school is intense."

"You see her all the time."

"I help her study."

She huffed. "I KNOW. I don't blame her. Just…" She turned her head away from him and out toward the drumming rain. "What really is here for me?" she whispered.

_I am._

"Who would really miss me so hard that it couldn't be bridged by a 2-hour train ride?"

_I would._

He felt like choking. Maybe he could move to Nagoya too? How weird would that be? Very weird. He probably didn't care about the weird.

"You don't even _like_ working there..." he managed a meek protest.

Her look tightened and she glared. "I _liked_ working at the amusement park. Even when I was alone in that assessment."

"...that's not true," he murmured.

She scoffed. "Yeah right. You of all people had the most negative comments about it. You were worse than even _Shingo_."

He swallowed. Couldn't even deny it. He'd HATED seeing her work there, ever since he visited her there that one time.

It hadn't been the amusement park itself. That fit her, obviously. It wasn't that it was low pay either. Sure, he'd wished more security for her, but if it made her happy, who was he to judge... No. It had been seeing her bow to all these people thanking them in overt gratitude and in a silly costume because they'd bought a fucking ticket for a ferris wheel and they all ignored her.

She was the friggin heir of the Silver Millennium. He remembered empires bowing to her. And much more than that, she was Sailor Moon. Even if no one remembered, she'd died protecting all of them, only to be resurrected and fight on and save all their asses on a nightly basis _again_ _and again_, sacrificing _everything_ over and over _repeatedly_ even when all she ever wanted, in _any_ life, was just to be a normal girl. They all should weep at her feet in gratitude.

Instead she bowed to THEM and they didn't even LOOK at her.

He hadn't been able to take it.

And so he'd lashed out and ridiculed it for months until she found herself a new job. A stable job. A well-paying job. This job.

He was one of the reasons why she was in this job she hated that would maybe steal her away for good now and it made the bile stick resolutely in his throat.

"What—" he started, couldn't finish. Tried again. "What if I want you to stay?"

She eyes jumped, startled. Then, slower, she frowned. "Do you?"

"Yes," he breathed. _Please_. Fuck, _please_.

She didn't say anything for a while. But her _eyes_ – her mind was working. Like she was solving a puzzle and the puzzle was him. Like he'd accidentally uttered a secret too deep, like… like she was figuring him out. _Finally_.

Her voice was just a whimper. Just a breath, and it was in pain.

"The way you look at me… I used to think you hate me. That you don't want me around…"

He shook his head hard.

He closed his eyes. "Usako," he said. And it was 4 am talking. It was six years talking. "I'd _beg_ you to stay. _Please_."

And then his other hand was on her hand too, clutching, and her eyes were so, so wide.

"I want you, too," she whispered.

It slammed into his ribs. He ripped his hands from hers.

_No_.

He swallowed.

Her hand curled into her knees and she shrunk a little.

"Why won't you tell me what's holding you back?"

He needed to go. He needed to go, now.

He got up.

"What happened between us, Mamo-chan?" Her voice was back to small and broken, freezing him at her door.

She _chose _to forget. She chose to forget _him_. In her _dying wish_, she'd chosen to forget, and it _hurt_, but he'd vowed to respect that. He _couldn't_—

… And… wasn't it all worth forgetting? Wasn't it a mercy not to know? …Sometimes _he_ really didn't want these memories. Bringing down two worlds over a love that killed them. The pain, the longing, the guilt. Being brought back only to die under the same hands again, but not before he'd—

... He'd give _anything_ not to remember _that_. Remembering what he'd done to her, his hands on her throat and squeezing until…?

"I don't want you to have those memories about me…" he whispered brokenly, his back to her.

It was probably the most honest words he'd ever spoken, and he hated them.

And then her hands were at his back, stroking.

"What memories, Mamo-chan?"

He swallowed. Blinked at the ceiling. "There's this French song," he said, voice shaky. "'You'll be happy if you manage to forget everything, everything that was bad'," he quoted.

He exhaled around the lump in his throat. "I just want you to be happy, Usako. It's all I ever wanted. You made the choice to forget… who am I to—"

_Especially if it's for the selfish reason to not want to be without you?_

The last time he made this very choice the price had been genocide.

He had never been good for her. In any life, in any time.

But then he felt her growing rigid at his back, felt it when her hands shook and her breath hitched. Felt it when she was on the verge of something big, something that took all her strength and all her bravery to say, and he knew that he was doomed.

He felt her hands curling into his shirt at his back. Felt her forehead hit his spine. _Felt_ the words that broke him because he knew them, felt them rushing in his ears and taking all resolve, hammering, beating, coiling, snarling.

"I'm in love with you," Usagi whispered against his back, her hands gripping tight.

"And I'm beginning to think you might be in love with me, too."

He exhaled in a shuddering breath, turning despite his better judgement. But—

Her eyes were wide, her eyes still that devastating shade of irresistibly beautiful, her lips red, cheeks flushed, and her hand landed on his chest, just above his heart.

"It doesn't even have to mean anything. I know you don't actually want this. But… just give me this one memory?"

And he felt his pulse in his throat, and he knew it was wrong, but it was almost word for word, and it broke him _again_.

When she tugged on his damp shirt, he collapsed against her lips. When she tugged again, he followed blindly.

He couldn't not.

He'd been strong through deaths and brainwashing and drunk confessions. He'd been strong for the hardest situations in his life, and yet it was the rain still in her hair and the echoes of _Tsukino Usagi _thinking she wasn't _wanted_, the threat that she might _leave_ if he didn't prove she was wrong, her darkened eyes and words she couldn't know, that finally did him in. He had nothing left in him to resist, and it felt like falling backwards into a rushing river.

And maybe this time he just wanted to believe her lie. That it didn't have to mean anything. That he wasn't disrespecting her wish, his vow, if he did this, if he let her do this.

Maybe this _could_ just be sex. Maybe this could not count. Maybe he didn't have to confess what all he did to her and could just hold her instead. One memory. One memory he was allowed to share with her.

Six years. It had been six years of watching her from afar, of wanting her from afar, and she was here, and she was holding out her hand, and he surrendered to the tide.

His hands were shaking violently on her cheek and in her hair when finally, _finally_, his lips touched hers, and it felt like he was being resurrected from his mouth onwards.

He had no thought left to care about the desperate, crying, devout noises that he made, the harsh, shuddering breaths he took around her lips, his broken mewl when his tongue slipped against her lower lip and was granted access.

Instead his mind zeroed in at the way she melted underneath him, at the noises _she_ made, at the way she felt as broken by his kiss and the brush of his lips and his tongue against hers as he felt, at the way it felt like he hadn't lived before this moment because her lips were impossibly soft and they were his for as long as he could make this last.

When he _finally_ was allowed to learn what the woman he would die for always and without question _tasted_ like, and all he could do was grab onto her cheek and her chin and kiss her harder.

He surrendered. She could have him. She could break him. He didn't care. He had this now, and no one would take it away.

Even if she chose to forget this later, even if she later chose this really didn't mean anything either, he would have this, forever.

The taste of her mouth – of _Usagi's_ mouth, _Usagi's_ tongue, _Usagi's_ lips – burned into his memory for both of them.

She gasped when his grip grew stronger, bolder, when he woke up and walked them blindly the few steps back to her bed, never releasing her lips (he _couldn't_).

His hands blindly yanked at her damp blouse and he whimpered when his hands met taupe colored lace, and his knees buckled but there was her bed, and her hands pushing at him.

And her hands at the buckle of his belt, and her hands fluttering against his sticky, damp skin in his own damp shirt, burning where they touched, and he didn't even care about the small sounds of tear he heard, because he was met with the thump of clothing to her floor again.

Her hands at his shoulders, pushing. He made a loud, irritated, protesting noise, because with a pop their lips disconnected, but then he was lying on his back on her moons-and-bunnies-comforter, and the person he worshipped above all else was straddling his thighs in taupe lace and damp skin, her hair flowing down around them like a curtain, and his frightened eyes met hers when she captured his cheeks with her hands.

"Do you want this, too?" she breathed at him, wide-eyed.

He knew the fear showed clear in his eyes. He knew it had to. But he nodded. Tentative at first, and then harsher, and his trembling hands lifted to her hips and were allowed to dig into her soft, warm, clammy skin and it _shuddered_ under his touch.

And then –

Holyfucking_shit_ –

_Then_, she rocked her hips under his touch and his eyes rolled back in his head and he nearly couldn't take it, because she was grinding herself against his erection that he hadn't even _noticed_ consciously until now, too wrapped up in the fever dream that was being allowed to have a taste, and he hadn't noticed was only separated from her by his cotton briefs and taupe fucking lace.

But he'd been allowed a glimpse, and so, when she repeated the movement, his eyes were wide-eyed and glued to hers, and his hands were pulling at her hips to make her grind just that little harder, and he released his lips from his own teeth for a broken, almost pained hiss instead.

His hands slipped wondrously across her skin, feeling, catching, _digging,_ around her hips and down her butt – _Usagi's_ fucking _butt –_ dipping into her damp, rain-misted underwear and stroking down the plump cheeks with a guttered groan. He clutched at her, he clawed and pulled at her, and she rolled her hips and met the bulge in his underwear again. He was falling apart. He couldn't take this.

Every single one of his senses was heightened. His fingertips tingled where they touched her, his skin burned where she touched him, where her lips grazed him and breathed down to stir the fine hairs, where her tongue dipped against it and caused him to die.

But _goddamn_, the roll of her hips. Feeling his uncomfortably hard erection slip against her damp underwear, feeling the slow, deliberate, pressing slip of his clothed cock between her clothed lips through their ruined, slick underwear, the vibrations of her mewls as she did this, slow and intense and killing him.

He clutched her ass harder, pushed her down on him tighter. How did this even _happen_, when had this—

He threw his head back and found her eyes almost in a panic, and her eyes were as frantic as his and she _was biting her lip and holding her breath_.

He _surged_ forward.

His hands slipped against her skin and underneath her bra straps, and he didn't even try to bother with the clasp, he just pushed it up, up, up and over her head, hands wild and unsteady, her own hands pulling at his damp hair. And her breasts fell from their soft, damp prison, and these were _Usagi's_. The breasts he'd shamefully imagined for _years_. In his _hands_. The sight of Usagi's soft, heavy, small but round and plump peaks falling out of the fabric, bouncing just that little bit, and he couldn't breathe. He needed to sit up, he needed to worship, he needed to kiss the puckered pink tips because they were _exactly_ like he remembered even if it was a life ago, and he needed to stroke and—

And the angle was different like this, the friction between them at once less and worse, his boxers more tented, and when she ground against him again, hanging onto his shoulders, her thighs spread open around him, he could feel the tip of his cock slip against a hollow spot, dipping, denting into the fabric, drenching through her underwear and his and creating wet friction at his cock and… and… and _shitfuckingdamn was he just inside of her?_

He clutched at the side of her ribs and her soft breast, as well as her ass, panted harshly, stilling.

Her eyes were wide, her breath came harsher even than his, and he thought she might be thinking the same, but then he cried out because her hand snuck between them and into his underwear.

Shit her _hands_. _Usagi's_ hands were on his fucking _cock_ and how did this _happen_ he couldn't _take this_—

He needed to watch her face instead, craned his neck. He couldn't look down, it would do him in, but _she _was looking down between them, licking her lips and rocking her hips and her boobs _jiggled_ with it, and the tips of her nipples grazed his chest just barely in the process, and the way she _bit her lip_ – and suddenly watching her face was _worse_ because she flicked her hand to her lips and two fingers into her mouth to _wet them_ and then they were slick and damp around the tip of him and he honest to god _howled_ when he pressed his mouth into her neck to disintegrate.

_Too intense. Too much, too much, too_ much—

She took him out of his boxers and when the air hit his skin and the slit in the tip of his cock, he knew he was growing even larger, twitching in her hand and _dripping_, and he had to squeeze his eyes shut almost painfully.

With less barrier between them than even before, when he rocked his hips forward against her panties in the same way again, it was her turn to fall apart.

She dug her fingernails into his shoulders, holding on, and her face scrunched up beautifully, and his tip dipped her panties into her slit and further in, disappearing with the utterly drenched, utterly slick and darkened, filthy fabric.

Holy_shittt_—

She keened, voice catching and breaking and stuttering with the harsh lifts of her chest and her breasts and biting his own lip, watching her face carefully, one hand brushing away her fringe to see her better, the other clawing into her butt to rock her against him, he watched her eyes roll back and her mouth pop open and her teeth clench when he nudged his cock back against her opening, slipping his tip and her panties just that little bit inside of her, and watched her face in falling-apart awe as it absolutely _wrecked_ her.

Slow, slow, slow, but again, and _again_, and he did it a few times more before she apparently couldn't take it anymore, and with a wrench she hopped off his lap and rose to her knees above him and her hands _flew_ to the waistband of her panties.

She looked at him with alarm in her eyes when he stilled her hands, clamping his own above hers to stop their motion and keep them in place.

But they turned soft and warm, her eyes, when she heard his choked admission.

"Let me," he breathed. Reverently, ardently, unbelieving, and she gave a sharp, wide-eyed nod above him and stood.

He bent forward with trembling lips and his cock was trapped uncomfortably to drop an open-mouthed, breathy kiss to each sharp hip bone, before slipping down.

He moved to his knees in front of her and unwrapped her like the gift she was. Slow and savoring and carefully, he rubbed his palms flat against her creamy thighs and her knees and her shins when he slipped his hands down the side of the fabric and hooked the fabric down by the catch at his wrists. And when _Usagi's_ panties pooled at her feet, and her small, perfect, pink toes stepped out of them and he finally looked back up, her eyes were shining with tears.

For a moment he was afraid he did something wrong, that he fucked this up, but then her hands were back on his shoulders, pushing him slowly back onto the bed, and her lips were back to his, her hands slipping insistently against his scalp – but this time her lips were torturously slow even when her hands found the waistband of his own boxer briefs.

She wasn't as slow about it as he was, and he had to help her along and lift his ass off her mattress for her to get them off, but when his cock sprung free and he was back to sitting at the edge of her bed and she was standing, staring at him with a look in his eyes that was as disbelieving as his own, they had a moment where they paused, staring, and his terror returned because what if she'd changed her mind, what if this was the moment he had to start pretending again that this never happened.

"Do you have a condom, by any chance?" she whispered with some difficulty, breathing deep and visible and voice rough but eyes locked on his.

It drove the point home that this was… this was really actually fucking _going_ _there_. This was _happening_—

But also…

His eyes widened. "No," he choked. "No, I don't."

Her brow tightened. "Neither do I."

Oh.

He swallowed, his gut sinking, his hand digging into his knee. Right, this was too good to be true anyway. And…and… this was sensible. This shouldn't happen. It was a mistake, it was against the rules, this was… this was…

He couldn't even think it. This _wasn't_ good. He _wanted_ this. He wanted _her_—

"I have an IUD," she whispered.

His heart jumped painfully. Somewhere in the back of his brain his mind _forbade_ him to think about the fact why she would have one, why she would need one, and instead he licked his lips, wide-eyed.

"Do you— Are you—" She was frowning, unsure how to ask this, and he interrupted her.

"This is my first time," he breathed into the quiet and towards her naked body, standing once again out of reach.

It was her eyes that reacted the hardest.

He could count the silence by the lifts of his own chest and the harsh breathing that passed his lungs in it.

But then her knuckles brushed against his cheeks and she slowly, oh so slowly bend her knees on either side of his thighs, dipped onto the mattress, climbed.

"I'll be an important memory for you, too, then?" she whispered so very hopefully, and he nearly burst into tears, and he captured her cheeks.

"You're _every_ important memory of mine, Usako," he whispered. "Every single one."

It was when she lowered herself on top of him, and slowly, so slowly, to her trembling lower lip and the shudder that shook in his lungs and the feeling of himself slipping tight, tight, tight when she took him, until there's only _Usagi_ surrounding him, that he finally realised the mistake he'd made.

He could never go back. He could never live without this. Life would be torture after this when he couldn't have it anymore, couldn't have _her_ anymore, and life had been such torture already.

And so, he clutched his arms around her startled form and pressed her to him. And if she was surprised, she didn't let it show, instead she held him right back and didn't move, except when suddenly she _did_ and how could anything, _anything_ ever compare? How could anything feel this fucking _good_.

He gasped open-mouthed against her throat; his mouth contorted into a silent scream against her skin.

Holy shit. Holyshitholyshitholy_fucking_—

"F-_fuuuuck_," he groaned, brokenly. He lost all control. None left. No idea what his fingers were doing. No idea what his hips were doing or his head, but he was moving to her rhythm and his hands were full of Usagi, and then his mouth was too.

He cried when he came. A blubbering, desperate mess he rode out, but her hands were at his temple and her eyes were concerned and wide and soft and so close to his when he did, holding him through it, even when he cried a pitiful rendition of "Don't forget this, _please_, please don't forget this. Don't forget this, _too_."

* * *

Fin

* * *

_(yes I'm mean. Apparently, stories in this universe end with Mamoru crying. __Anyway, reviews are love and I always love to hear from you CRAZY BADLY lol.)_


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